ellison travel login

Forgot Password

Enter your email address to get password generation link

Partner and Associated

Ellisons Portal - Login

Please enter your ID and Password :

 London is the cultural, political, and economic heart of Britain, famous for its world-class museums, galleries, royal palaces, shopping destinations, West End theatre shows and award-winning restaurants. Whether you want to stay in a 5-star luxury hotel and sip Champagne on the London Eye or find a cheap hostel and stroll around one of London's beautiful Royal Parks, you're sure to find something that suits your budget and interests.

British pound, £1 = 100 pence

The Times – www.thetimes.co.uk The Telegraph – www.telegraph.co.uk The Guardian – www.theguardian.com Daily Mail – www.dailymail.co.uk The Independent – www.independent.co.uk London Evening Standard – www.standard.co.uk

Typical shopping hours are Monday to Saturday from 9 am to 5:30 pm. Many department stores stay open until 6pm, some until 7 pm or even 8 pm once a week, usually on Wednesdays or Thursdays. Larger shops are often open 10am–6pm on Sundays.

9.4 million (2022, estimated)

City of London Information Centre St Paul's Churchyard, London +44 20 7332 3456 Opening hours: Mon–Sat 9:30am–5:30pm, Sun 10am–4pm

www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/city-information-centre

London is a world-class city and the heart of British politics, culture and commerce. Its history stretches back thousands of years, and remnants of this fascinating past can still be found across the capital — from the Tower of London, a gruesome site of Medieval torture, to the majestic Buckingham Palace. A captivating mix of old and new, London is also renowned for its creativity, innovation and originality in art, theatre, music, design and cuisine. It is home to countless art galleries and museums, including the Tate Modern, National Gallery and British Museum, which possesses some of the world's finest treasures. And best of all, entry to most of these museums and galleries is free! To catch all the 'big-hitters' in one go, you can't beat a walk along the River Thames. Strolling from Tower Bridge to the Houses of Parliament you'll pass the Tower of London, Shakespeare's Globe, Tate Modern, the Southbank Centre, the National Theatre, the London Eye, the SEA LIFE London Aquarium and London Dungeon. In addition to these world-famous attractions, there are many more to discover during your stay. The West End is the place to go to see London's top theatre shows and musicals. Alongside classics including Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera and The Woman in Black, you will find hit contemporary shows, such as Billy Elliot, The Lion King and Thriller – Live. Don't forget to explore the many off-West End venues too, such as the National Theatre, The Old Vic and (during the summer months) Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. In the West End you will also find some of London's top shopping destinations, from Oxford Street to Seven Dials. Different neighbourhoods are known for other unique opportunities for shopping: Notting Hill is renowned for its antiques and Portobello Market, Greenwich has an excellent arts and crafts markets, while Westfield London City and Westfield Stratford are the city's most famous malls. If you would rather save money than spend it, the eight Royal Parks are well worth a visit — and a great spot for a picnic. Visit Greenwich Park to drop in on the Royal Observatory, walk through Kensington Gardens to see Kensington Palace, take a paddle on the Hyde Park boating lake, see Buckingham Palace from scenic St James's Park, spot deer at Richmond Park and Bushy Park, and meet the animals at London Zoo, which lies within Regent's Park. Along the way indulge your taste buds with delicious food at one of London's many restaurants, gastropubs and pop-up eateries. You can eat food prepared by a celebrity chef, discover modern British cuisine, or eat food from anywhere in the world — be it Indian, Chinese, Persian, Greek, Italian or Lebanese. Top off your perfect day with a fancy cocktail, excellent wine or locally brewed beer at a top London pub or bar — and maybe a boogie at one of the capital's buzzing nightspots and clubs.

London is full of things to do and see. From famous attractions such as the London Eye, the Palace of Westminster, the Big Ben and the Tower of London to much lesser known ones that are almost secret. There are also exciting shopping destinations, vast areas of green parkland in the middle of the city and much, much more. Read on for inspiration and handy tips on places you just can't miss while you're in the capital. Many attractions on this list are free to enter, giving you another great reason to fall in love with London.

Buckingham Palace

Houses of Parliament

River Thames Cruise

Stonehenge, Windsor Castle & Bath from London

British Museum

Tower of London

Platform Nine & Three-Quarters

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

Natural History Museum

Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon & Cotswolds Tour from London

Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter

Jack the Ripper Tour

St Paul's Cathedral

National Gallery

Leicester Square

London Bus Tour, Hop On – Hop Off

Brixton & the Electric Avenue

Hoxton & Shoreditch

Victoria & Albert Museum

Madame Tussauds London

Sherlock Holmes Museum

Hampstead Heath

Tate Modern

British Film Institute — The BFI

Kew Gardens

SEA LIFE London Aquarium

Legoland Windsor

Hampton Court Palace

WWT London Wetland Centre

London Dungeon

Museum of London

London Mithraeum

National Portrait Gallery

Day Trips from London

Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon and Cotswolds Tour from London

Events Not To Be Missed

London offers a jam-packed calendar of events that cater to a wide range of audiences all year round. This guide highlights the most popular and interesting ones that should definitely be on your bucket list.

Christmas Markets in London

Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace

British Summer Time Music Festival

RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Trooping the Colour — King's Birthday Parade

Notting Hill Carnival

Totally Thames Festival

Restaurants

The British culinary scene is abuzz in London, with innovative chefs rethinking traditional British classics and creating new favourites — all with an emphasis on fresh, local produce. Thanks to London's rich mix of cultures, the capital's restaurants serve up delicious food from all corners of the globe. Whatever cuisine you fancy, you're sure to find it in London. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Caribbean, Polish, French, Italian, Afghan, Ethiopian, American, Spanish, South African, Persian — the list goes on. With Michelin Star restaurants, family-friendly eateries, cosy gastropubs, fast food joints and quirky cafes dotted all over the city, there's something for every budget too. Food halls and street food are on the rise, too, with new ones popping up seemingly every month.

Arcade Food Hall

Kanada-Ya Piccadilly

Bang Bang Oriental Food Hall

The Wolseley

Restaurant Gordon Ramsay

Borough Market

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

Poppies Fish & Chips

OXO Tower Restaurant, Bar and Brasserie

Mestizo Mexican Restaurant & Tequila Bar

Gaucho Piccadilly

Masala Zone Bayswater

Rainforest Cafe

The Blues Kitchen — Shoreditch

Locanda Locatelli

Duke of Cambridge

Top 9 Afternoon Teas

Delicate finger sandwiches, tempting cakes, pots of steaming tea, scones with lashings of jam and cream. With so many delicious ingredients, it's no wonder traditional afternoon tea remains as popular as ever. There are many top hotels, restaurants and cafes serving afternoon tea in London to this day, and there are many varieties available — from classic afternoon tea to low-calorie alternatives and even a gentleman's afternoon tea. The afternoon tea is a rather elegant affair, so don't waste the opportunity to wear something smart and you'll feel right at home. The establishments in our list of the most notable afternoon teas all have dress code requirements.

Afternoon Tea at The Ritz

Afternoon Tea at Fortnum & Mason

Afternoon Tea at Brown's Hotel

Afternoon Tea at Hotel Café Royal

Afternoon Tea at The Dorchester

Afternoon Tea at Royal Albert Hall

Afternoon Tea at Roseate House

Afternoon Tea at The Goring

Afternoon Tea at The Rubens at the Palace Hotel

Bars & Nightlife

London's nightlife is one of the most vibrant and varied in the world, with everything from mega clubs to live music. And from trendy bars to traditional British pubs. Spots in central London like Soho and Leicester Square attract visitors most nights of the week, but if it's the more trendy venues you're interested in why not try neighbourhoods like Hoxton and Shoreditch in East London, or Brixton and Clapham in South London. Here's just a taster of what London has to offer on a night out, including quality pubs and bars, world-renowned clubs, live music venues and much more.

Ministry of Sound

Vaulty Towers

Marksman Public House

Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town

The Four Quarters

Ladies & Gents

The Argyll Arms

The Top Secret Comedy Club

Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club

The King's Head Theatre Pub

The Atlas Pub

Gordon’s Wine Bar

The Prince Alfred

The Hippodrome Casino

Shopping in London is one of the most popular pastimes for visitors and locals alike. And it's no wonder given the huge range of shopping destinations across the capital, from high-end luxury boutiques and huge department stores to lively markets and vintage pop-ups. The key is to find the right shopping area for you, be it the bright lights and big brands of the West End, the quirky and outrageous fashion of Camden or the smart suits in Savile Row. Here are just a few of London's top shopping destinations well worth a visit.

Oxford Street

Portobello Road Market

We Built This City

Regent Street

Camden Lock Market

Covent Garden & Seven Dials

Knightsbridge

Greenwich Market

Westfield London

Westfield Stratford City

Harvey Nichols Knightsbridge

Tourist Information

Passport / Visa

Citizens of the European Union member-states, Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Switzerland, and Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) only require a valid passport to enter the UK. Residents of a further 10 countries do not require entry visas for stays under 6 months: the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, South Africa, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. Nationals of some further countries do not require a visa, but need to hold an entry certificate.

Website: www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa

More Information:

Best Time to Visit

London is graced with a mild climate and, as such, can be visited at any time of the year. However, a few things need to be considered. Most of the royal palaces and residences, like the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace, are only open to the public during the summer months. Many of the city's most important festivals, like the British Summer Time Music Festival, also take place during this time. Late June to mid July is also when some of the best sales are on in shops around the capital. Spring is also a good season for a visit, since the weather is generally good and finding accommodation is both easier and cheaper (high season in London means a lot of tourists). And if you're not too bothered about the grey weather, then low season (January and February) can be a good option too, when there are fewer tourists and prices are lower.

London Heathrow Airport (LHR)

London Heathrow Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world, with five terminals. There are various ways to travel from Heathrow Airport to your destination. The cheapest and most versatile way of getting to and from the city centre to Heathrow is by tube. The fastest way is the dedicated airport train — the Heathrow Express — which takes just 15 minutes from Heathrow to Paddington Station and runs every 15 minutes.

Address: Heathrow Airport, Hounslow, Middlesex

Phone: +44 844 335 1801

Website: www.heathrow.com

London Gatwick Airport (LGW)

London Gatwick Airport is the second largest airport in the UK (Heathrow Airport is the largest), with two terminals: North and South. The fastest route from the airport into Central London is via the Gatwick Express, with trains departing every 15 minutes. The non-stop journey to Victoria Station takes 30 minutes. Try the trip planner on the official website to see which of the many transportation options works best for you.

Address: Gatwick Airport, West Sussex

Phone: +44 844 892 0322

Website: www.gatwickairport.com

London Stansted Airport (STN)

London Stansted Airport is the third busiest airport in the UK, and many low-cost airlines serving Europe and the Mediterranean operate from here. On the Stansted Express you can reach Liverpool Street station in 47 minutes. Trains run every 15 minutes. You can see the full up-to-date list of transportation options on the official website.

Address: Stansted Airport, Essex CM24 1RW

Phone: +44 808 169 7030

Website: www.stanstedairport.com

London Luton Airport (LTN)

London Luton Airport is located just 56km north-west of Central London, and is a popular base for low-cost airlines. A regular shuttle bus transports passengers from the airport to the nearest station, Luton Airport Parkway, which takes about 10 minutes. From the station you can catch an East Midlands Trains or First Capital Connect service into Central London taking somewhere between 21 and 25 minutes. Other options include the easyBus express service, the Green Line 757 coach service to Victoria Coach Station or Terravision coaches to Victoria Coach Station. Each transport service stops at different destinations en route. A metered taxi ride to or from Central London costs around £80.

Address: London Luton Airport, Luton, Bedfordshire

Phone: +44 1582 405 100

Website: www.london-luton.co.uk

Airport — London City (LCY)

London City Airport is a single runway airport located 9.5km east of Central London, and serving mainly short-haul and business flights. The airport is on the Docklands Light Railway, which connects to London's Tube network at Canning Town, Stratford and Bank and uses the same price structure. Buses serve the airport too, with numbers 473 and 474 providing a connection to other East London destinations. You can also take a cab from the taxi rank outside the airport.

Address: London City Airport, Hartmann Road, London

Phone: +44 20 7646 0000

Website: www.londoncityairport.com

Public Transport — Bus

London's bus network stretches right across the capital and provides a frequent and accessible service. If you're using an Oyster card, all you have to do is 'touch in' when you get on the tram. Seven-day, one-month and annual bus passes are available. Cash is no longer accepted in buses and trams. You might be able to pay by tapping your contactless bank payment card. To navigate your way around the network, pick up a Central London Bus Guide from travel information centres at larger Tube stations or use Transport for London's online Journey Planner. A reduced service of night buses operates throughout the night and the early hours of the morning. Most late-night routes will stop at Trafalgar Square. Various concessions are available for children, students, the elderly and disabled travellers.

Phone: +44 343 222 1234

Website: www.tfl.gov.uk

More Information: tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel

Public Transport — the Tube

There are 11 Underground or 'Tube' lines serving Greater London, which connect at various points to the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and local rail network. The Tube usually operates from 5am to midnight from Monday to Saturday, with a reduced service on Sunday. Plan your route by picking up a free Tube map from any Underground station, or using Transport for London's online Journey Planner. Fares vary depending on which of London's six travel 'zones' you travel through, though they are considerably cheaper with an Oyster card than buying paper tickets. Various concessions are available for children, students, the elderly and disabled travellers.

Public Transport — Docklands Light Railway

The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) serves East London and connects with the Tube network at Bank, Tower Gateway (Tower Hill), Shadwell, Stratford, Bow, Heron Quays, Canning Town and Canary Wharf. It also connects to the Emirates Air Line cable car at Royal Victoria. Fares are the same as on the Tube, and the DLR runs from 5:30am to 12:30am Monday to Saturday and from 7am to 11:30pm on Sunday. Both Oyster card and Travelcard holders can use the DLR.

Public Transport — Thames River Bus

Travel with ease along the Thames on board a river bus. There are six different routes that all stop at destinations along the riverbank between Putney and Woolwich Arsenal. Popular services include the Thames Clippers route between Hilton London Docklands Riverside and Canary Wharf, the Tate-to-Tate boatride between Tate Britain and Tate Modern, and the journey between London Eye and Greenwich village. Depending on the service you'll be able to buy your ticket either before boarding or on board. Discounts are available when using Travelcards and Oyster cards.

Website: www.tfl.gov.uk/modes/river/about-river-bus

Public Transport — Local Trains

As well as the Underground, London has its own local train network, which connects to the Tube at many points. The main train operators serving London are Silverlink, First Capital Connect, SouthEastern Railway, Southern Railway, London Overground and Greater Anglia. These local lines are, in turn, connected to the national rail network and the Eurostar. You can use your Oyster card on all trains operating within Zones 1-9, with the exception of Heathrow Express and a few other select services. Several different railcards are available too, providing discount fares to their holders.

Website: www.tfl.gov.uk/maps/track

Public Transport — Trams

London's tram network, Tramlink, was introduced in the year 2000 and it runs in specific parts of South London — between Wimbledon, Croydon, Beckenham and New Addington. Trams run approximately every seven minutes to New Addington and every 10 minutes to Wimbledon, Elmers End and Beckenham Junction during the day from Monday to Saturday. If you're using an Oyster card, all you have to do is 'touch in' when you get on the tram. Seven-day, one-month and annual bus passes are available. Cash is no longer accepted in buses and trams. You can pay by tapping your contactless bank payment card.

Public Transport — Cycle Hire Scheme

Hop on a 'Boris bike' and zip around London using the city's public bike-sharing scheme. Named after London's former mayor Boris Johnson, the popular red bikes can be picked up at over 550 bicycle docking stations across London, which means you're never far away from one. After you've paid your registration fee (from £2), you can hire a bike for a day. The bikes are free to use for the first 30 minutes, after which the price increases by £2 every extra 30 minutes. When you've finished your journey, simply return the bike to your nearest docking station – you can find out where that is using the Santander Cycles app.

Phone: +44 343 222 6666

Website: www.tfl.gov.uk/modes/cycling/santander-cycles

Public Transport — IFS Cloud Cable Car

Cross the Thames in style on board the IFS Cloud Cable Car, London's cable car connecting Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks. As well as taking you across the river in less than 10 minutes, it provides an amazing bird's eye view of London and the Thames. The fare is £4 using an Oyster card or Contactless card. Multi-journey boarding passes (£17 for 10 single trips) and private cabin packages are also available. After 7pm the line runs at half the speed, giving you more time to enjoy the view and relax.

Address: 27 Western Gateway, London

Website: tfl.gov.uk/modes/london-cable-car

Taking a ride in one of London's iconic black cabs makes for a very comfortable and spacious ride. Hail a cab in the street or pick one up at a taxi rank. Your journey is calculated using a meter, with a minimum charge of £3.20. Watch out though, because the price can go up pretty quickly and the roads in central London are often packed with cars. London also has many private vehicles for hire, as well as minicabs: these are unmetered so check the fare when booking. To find a local, reputable firm download Transport for London's free CabWise app or check the Hailo app to find a nearby black cab. Uber, Bolt, Ola, Via, Wheely, xooox, Free Now, Gett and Addison Lee rideshare apps all operate in London.

Phone: +44 343 222 4000

Website: www.tfl.gov.uk/modes/taxis-and-minicabs/taxi-fares

Postage stamps are available across London at post offices, newsagents and supermarkets. To post a package or small souvenirs, drop into a post office — you can find your nearest branch on their official website. Post offices are generally open Monday–Friday from 9 am to 5:30 pm and Saturday from 9 am to 12:30 pm.

Website: www.postoffice.co.uk

Whether you need to buy over-the-counter medication or collect a prescription, there are plenty of pharmacies all over the capital. Boots and Superdrug are two big chemist chains. You will also find pharmaceutical products at some of the larger supermarket branches.

Address: Boots London Piccadilly Circus, 44-46 Regent St, London

Phone: +44 207 7346 126

Website: www.boots.com/stores/1000-london-piccadilly-circus-w1b-5ra

The international dialling code for the UK is +44 or 0044, which replaces the first 'zero' of the phone number. So, for example, to call the number 020 7946 0000 from abroad you would dial +44 20 7946 0000. The area codes for London are (020) 7, (020) 8 and (020) 3. If you're dialling a London number from another fixed phone line within Greater London you don't need to dial the '020' before the number, just the rest of the number starting with 7, 8 or 3.

Electricity

Electrical appliances are connected to the UK mains supply using a three-pin plug known as plug type G. The sockets come with on-and-off switches, unlike in many other countries. The average voltage of a UK power socket is 230V or slightly higher, so check the voltage of your device before plugging it in. Voltage adaptors and convertors are available from London airports and high-street electrical chains such as Argos or Curry's.

Frequently Asked Questions about London (FAQs)

FAQ – What is the best way to explore London? London is an extremely walkable city and most locals rely on public transportation to get around. As a tourist, you have a lot more to see when you are travelling overground, so consider picking busses and trams over the Tube just for that reason. Seeing London from the river is a great opportunity to understand the city’s geography and get away from the crowds. Remember to carry comfortable walking shoes, some sort of rain protection and don’t forget about sun cream. An Oyster card is your best tool for shrinking distances in this huge city, so get one as soon as possible. – How many days in London is enough? While you can see most of the main bucket list sights in London in a couple of days, spending at least 3-4 days in London is the best way to do this incredibly diverse city justice. You’ll have enough time to get acquainted with the city and go beyond the most obvious sight. Save a day to do something that speaks to you and your interests in particular. – Where can I get an Oyster card? An Oyster card is an essential tool for every Londoner. You can buy one at the Oyster ticket stops in many newsagents, at all Tube, London Overground, most TfL Rail and some DLR stations. Visitor Centres sell them as well. The card Oyster itself costs £5 and you can recharge it in all the same places where you can buy them, plus through the TfL Oyster and contactless app. – What’s the tipping culture in London? It is customary to leave 10–15% of the bill when eating out. Many restaurants will add a 12.5% service charge, especially if you’re dining out with a large group. Check your bill if you don’t want to tip twice. You can also ask for the service charge to be removed if you found the service to be completely unacceptable. – Is London a safe city? As most big cities, London does have a higher crime rate. According to the Economists Safe Cities Index, London is the 15th safest city in the world (tied with San Francisco). – Is it safe to walk around London at night? London streets at night are generally safe, but do remember that public transport doesn’t run all night — you might be in for a very long walk to your hotel or a potentially costly cab ride. – Where is the best place to stay in London? London has many neighbourhoods to choose from, so spend some time researching what personalities each one has. Price is another important consideration, of course. Brixton is a great residential area, known for its diversity, shops and street markets. Quite hip, but that also means it can get loud. Mayfair is right next to Hyde Park. Park yourself here for old British architecture and cute boutiques. The prices are somewhat high and Mayfair doesn’t have the best airport connections. Shoreditch is a hipster paradise with excellent coffee shop culture — great for digital nomads. Shoreditch is not the most polished neighbourhood, though. Almost all neighbourhoods in London are very safe, so don’t make that your main concern. Nightlife areas like Camden, West End and Deptford can turn a bit rowdy and loud at night, but you’ll be in the middle of the action. – Is London really always rainy and grey? People tend to exaggerate. London does have decent weather, with full on sunny days. The best time to visit to avoid crowds and stay dry is early summer or early fall. Bring a jacket for the nights, even in the summer. – What should I pack for my trip to London? London is great for shopping, so don’t worry too much about forgetting things at home. To stay comfortable, you’ll definitely need a pair of good walking shoes. A water-resistant jacket won’t hurt either. And do bring your favourite going out outfit for the weekend!

Today is a holiday! Business hours may be different today.

Location & Hours

Suggest an edit

123 Astronaut Ellison S Onizuka St

Los Angeles, CA 90012

Little Tokyo, Downtown

You Might Also Consider

Allan Jeffries Framing

7.4 miles away from Sora Gumi

Betty P. said "UPDATED UPDATE: Allan read my review on Yelp and called me to offer a free fix of the problem and told me if he couldn't he'd refund my money. He left a message on my cell phone and sounded so genuinely upset and concerned I called…" read more

Suit & Tux Warehouse

11.5 miles away from Sora Gumi

Eres D. said "My husband walked into this place on a Thursday, looking for a suit to wear on Sunday. We're not usually procrastinators, but after walking in a number of stores and leaving empty handed because they were either too pricey or rude…" read more

in Formal Wear, Men's Clothing, Clothing Rental

Recommended Reviews

• 1 star rating Not good
• 2 star rating Could’ve been better
• 3 star rating OK
• 4 star rating Good
• 5 star rating Great

Select your rating

Overall rating

Located on the 2nd floor of Weller Court, I happened to stumble upon this shop after seeing that they were having their Sora Street Fair in that walkway next to shopping complex. It was pretty neat seeing that this was a space for artists and creators to sell their goods ranging from keyboards themed after anime characters and series (they had them for Bocchi the Rock), plushies, stickers, tote bags, shirts, oppai boob mousepads for all gender characters, and even street style fashion (think techwear jackets). I did recognize a lot of the goods from local artists who have vended at other SoCal events such as Sugoi Saturday or Anime Impulse. I also recognized some of the other bigger vendors who occupy the larger, center creator spaces at the fashion/artist alley area of Anime Expo. Pretty neat that they have an in perosn place to sell their stuff in LA. Other anime series I've seen there include JJBA, Chainsawman, Spy x Family, Evangelion, etc. They also have some official figurines too. On top of fanmade merchandise, they have a lot of official merchandise, some really neat ones are definitely their Hatsune Miku collection, including the cute Miku ita bag in all different sizes, as well as their Arknights collection! Including the official rabbit mascot plushies and large acrylics. There was also a couple TYPE MOON and FGO items there such as the dakimakuras in the back (Scathach, Mashu, Okita Souji, Jack the Ripper, Jalter, etc.), some small arcylic stands (I got the last Karna one, yay!), and keychains. Also another rare find is some Touhou goods as well! Alright now onto the majority of the shop and what would appeal to most of the crowd out there (*cough* casuals *cough* - jk jk). There is A LOT of V tuber merchandise here and by the looks of it I think it's mostly Nijisanji and Hololive, including acrylics, keychains, and pins amongst other items. Now here's the kicker. If you're a Genshin Impact GAMER, you are ABSOLUTELY SCREWED. The majority of this shop is Genshin Impact and items range from official to fanmade merchandise of varying styles for a wide range of their characters, so if you have a husbando or waifu from Genshin...get ready to open your wallet. There's unique things here like hi quality plushies, Hu Tao's ghost lantern, traditional style art scrolls, omamori luck charms, arcylic stands, dakimakuras, desk mats, stickers, shirts, pins, etc. You don't like their outfits? No problem, they have merchandise of characters wearing casual modern clothing and even one where they're wearing formal clothing and playing classical instruments. As a Genshin Fan there's no escape (hence why I play a healthier gacha - jk jk). Definitely a MUST stop for all otaku, casual anime fans, and just those who stop by Little Tokyo.

See all photos from Ann T. for Sora Gumi

I first found out about Sora Gumi when a friend of mine visited their Orange County location. It looked pretty cool, so I decided to check it out. Several months after visiting the OC branch, my partner and I stumbled upon the LA branch here in Little Tokyo. The store is actually quite inconspicuous because it's tucked away in the far corner of the plaza upstairs. Upon entering though, the store is brightly lit up and stocked with all sorts of anime goodies and merchandise. I was particularly drawn to the apparel section in the back of the store because of the street-style, hype-inspired fashion. I ended up purchasing a Bibisama sweatshirt for a little over $80. Yes, the products at Sora Gumi are a bit on the pricier side, but keep in mind that it is a smaller chain of stores that are proud of their quality products and localizing Asian culture to a wide audience.

Sora Gumi has Bibisama apparel in stock.

This place is a treasure trove of fantastic merchandise. The store maintains a clean and organized layout, making it easy to explore the vast collection of anime items and stickers created by various talented artists. The real highlight, however, is the remarkable selection of Sengoku jackets. These jackets are not only incredibly stylish but also pleasantly surprising in terms of their affordability. The pricing far exceeded my expectations, adding another layer of delight to the shopping experience.

Honestly, the first review was so thorough I have nothing to say. Great store, great merchandise and great customer service. Definitely a dangerous place for Genshin Impact fans with both official and unofficial merchandise. Hopefully, they'll stock up with Honkai Star Rail soon.

Other Men's Clothing Nearby

San’s Suit Outlet

9.9 miles away from Sora Gumi

Mike T. said "Came to get a suit or 2 for work, realized they had a crazy deal basically $100 a suit if I got 3. It came with shirt, socks, and even belts. I saw a shoe that I feel in love with though so had to get it. I worked with Shadi or…" read more

in Men's Clothing, Formal Wear

14.7 miles away from Sora Gumi

Russell J. said "Service was outstanding, just what I was looking for Ronnie knows his business a place with class, style and a sense of fashion, quality suits. I was referred by a friend who's son is only 18yrs old who has already bought 4 suits…" read more

in Men's Clothing, Formal Wear, Bespoke Clothing

Collections Including Sora Gumi

Little Tokyo, DTLA

By Phuong N.

People Also Viewed

Anime Station

Anime Jungle/Entertainment Hobby Shop Jungle

BOOKOFF Little Tokyo Anime Store

K-Pop Music Town

Sakura Anime Toys

Neo Happyland

Browse Nearby

Restaurants

Things to Do

Baseball Card Shop

Model Train Shops

Travel Agents

Other Places Nearby

Find more Hobby Shops near Sora Gumi

Find more Men's Clothing near Sora Gumi

Find more Souvenir Shops near Sora Gumi

Related Cost Guides

Oracle's deadly gamble

Larry Ellison bet $28 billion he could revolutionize healthcare. So why are so many patients dying?

Larry Ellison's vision for the future of medicine crystallized for him in a doctor's office.

Oracle's billionaire cofounder needed medication to help manage his cholesterol. He said his "very fancy doctor," a molecular biologist, prescribed a statin called Crestor. The choice was informed by Ellison's age, sex, ethnicity, and family history. But it was still, Ellison realized, just "a pretty good guess."

Which got him thinking: What if, instead of guesswork, doctors could lean on generative AI to comb through a patient's medical records, along with those of millions of other patients? With such a massive database, doctors could spot the warning signs of disease faster, reduce the need for trial and error, and make better-informed decisions about treatment.

Ellison told this story last fall at Oracle's CloudWorld conference in Las Vegas. At 79, Ellison cut a trim figure in a black T-shirt, with a visage that hinted at significant investments in antiaging. The moral of the story seemed to be that whatever the world's fifth-richest person demanded for himself could ultimately benefit everyone.

That was the promise of Cerner , the medical-records company Oracle bought in 2021 for $28.3 billion — Oracle's biggest acquisition. At the time, Cerner managed the electronic health records for a quarter of all American hospitals, including those run by the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Ellison's plan was to pump all that medical data into Oracle's AI models and develop an EHR of the future.

"You have this wealth of data that will help doctors make much better decisions of what therapeutics to give you, and that will deliver better outcomes at a much lower cost," Ellison said onstage in Las Vegas, adding, "I'm not sure there's anything we're working on here at Oracle that's more important than this."

There was just one problem: Cerner was a total mess. While Ellison was fixated on the wildly exciting possibilities of marrying Cerner's medical records with Oracle's technology, Cerner was failing at even the most elementary tasks of data management. The company's rollout at the VA, which serves 9 million vets, had been a slow-moving catastrophe. One feature of its electronic records system had caused more than 11,000 orders for medical care to disappear into an "unknown queue." As a result, thousands of patients didn't receive the treatment their doctors had ordered. VA staffers were left in what one hospital leader called "a constant state of hypervigilance and distress" as they scrambled to retrieve and reenter the missing orders, which wound up harming 149 patients. Even worse, errors in the system's underlying design were contributing factors in three deaths.

I'm not sure there's anything we're working on here at Oracle that's more important than this. Larry Ellison

Cerner's electronic records, in short, were a deadly disaster for the VA. Never mind the futuristic, AI-driven healthcare system Ellison envisioned. In purchasing Cerner, Oracle had saddled itself with a huge liability. The company found itself in a race against time to fix the broken and dysfunctional system it had inherited from Cerner — before more veterans were injured or killed.

Ellison first approached Cerner about an acquisition two decades ago.

It was the mid-2000s, and the healthtech sector was red hot. The RAND Corporation had released a report estimating that the mass digitization of medical records would cut healthcare costs by $81 billion a year. While some saw the prediction as excessively rosy — it was paid for, in part, by Cerner — the report helped pave the way for a massive infusion of federal stimulus dollars to supercharge the adoption of electronic health records at American hospitals. Never mind that EHRs were more cumbersome than advertised; RAND would later conclude there were barely any savings. The promise of bringing hospitals into the digital age was deemed too important to put off.

Meanwhile, Big Tech was starting to invest heavily in healthcare IT, and Oracle wanted in.

Neal Patterson, Cerner's cofounder and its CEO at the time, was not impressed with Ellison's pitch. Like other executives at the company, he was distrustful of Silicon Valley. Big Tech, they felt, brought more chutzpah than expertise to the healthcare table. For years executives at Cerner passed around an internal slide that cataloged tech investments in healthcare and the raft of embarrassing exits by companies like GE and Siemens. Patterson rebuffed Ellison's advances, according to a former Cerner executive familiar with the discussions.

A decade later, Cerner scored a huge win. In 2015, it beat out Epic, its main competitor, for a $4.3 billion contract to handle electronic health records for the Defense Department. Two years later, it landed a similar contract for the VA, worth an estimated $10 billion, without even having to bid. The thinking was that giving both contracts to a single company would ensure seamless care for service members, especially in the period immediately after they're discharged, when they're most vulnerable to mental illnesses and substance-use disorders. "I wanted to move towards a single instance of an electronic record with the Department of Defense to make sure that this issue was resolved finally, once and for all," says Dr. David Shulkin, who served as the secretary of veterans affairs at the time.

But Cerner didn't have long to savor its victory. A month after it landed the VA contract, Patterson died of cancer. A bruising succession process ensued. Cerner was losing ground to Epic, and its stock had plateaued. In 2019, the activist investor and private-equity shop Starboard Value gained seats on Cerner's board, putting public pressure on the company to turn things around.

What's more, taking on two vast government systems turned out to be overwhelming. In the fall of 2020, as Cerner's inaugural system was rolled out at the VA health center in Spokane, Washington, things began to go wrong. Doctors and nurses complained that the system was slow and difficult to use, requiring them to spend more time inputting data and less time caring for patients. "You're spending all your time messing around on Cerner and taking like 10 minutes with your patients," one VA provider says. While VistA, the bespoke EHR that Cerner had replaced, was outdated and vulnerable to cyberattacks, it was generally reliable and user-friendly. With the new system, completing basic tasks was maddeningly complex, impeding the care Cerner was designed to streamline.

As records disappeared into Cerner's unknown queue, patients with serious illnesses went untreated. In one instance, a scathing report by the VA's inspector general said, a provider entered an order for a homeless patient at risk of suicide to receive follow-up care, but the order never went through, and the patient later had to be hospitalized after threatening to kill himself.

The unknown queue had been designed to capture orders Cerner couldn't deliver to the intended location. But the system didn't send an alert when this happened, and the inspector general found that Cerner had failed to train VA staff on the feature, putting the burden on the VA to identify the issue and request a fix. One VA leader compared Cerner's attitude about the missing medical orders to the post office stuffing "undeliverable mail behind a bush instead of placing them back in your mailbox."

While the VA had promised to "do right by both veterans and taxpayers," the switch to Cerner was doing harm. One Spokane veteran, Charlie Bourg, blames Cerner for a delay in getting a prostate-cancer diagnosis, after a referral was diverted into the unknown queue. By the time the mistake was discovered, Bourg's cancer had spread to the lymph nodes between his spine and stomach, and it was too late to do anything about it. The cancer was terminal. "I never gave the VA permission to gamble with my life," Bourg says.

As Cerner was rolled out to more VA and Defense Department health centers, their shared activity and data — more than Cerner had ever handled at once — pushed the company's aging hardware to a breaking point. And since its system wasn't on the cloud, Cerner was struggling to meet the increasing demand. It had agreed to process tens of millions of crucial medical records, but it couldn't handle the subsequent deluge of data.

The longer Cerner's system ran, the more the problems piled up. By the time Oracle approached the company for the second time, Cerner was no longer in a position to say no.

IIn the years after Ellison first approached Cerner, he became preoccupied with matters of health and longevity. "Larry and I both share a sadness with all the folks we've lost to cancer," says Marc Benioff, the Salesforce CEO and longtime Ellison protégé. "He wants to extend human life and help people live healthier lives. He's quite advanced in age, and aging, and may not be able to benefit himself."

Medicine has been a lifelong obsession for Ellison. He once thought of becoming a doctor, but he didn't stick with school long enough to get a degree, much less a medical degree. Once he became wealthy, he started to view death, as his biographer Mike Wilson put it, as "just another kind of corporate opponent he can outfox."

Ellison views healthcare as "a remarkably backward business," says Dr. David Agus, a renowned oncologist who met Ellison in the mid-2000s, right around the time Oracle first approached Cerner. Agus was treating Ellison's nephew for prostate cancer, and he'd later treat the Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, Ellison's close friend, who died in 2011. Since then, Agus and Ellison have collaborated on healthcare investments worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including the Ellison Institute of Technology and Sensei, a wellness-retreat company that includes a health utopia built on the Hawaiian island Ellison owns almost in its entirety.

"We've met with hospital administrators, researchers, and doctors," Agus says. "He commits to them, 'I can solve this problem.' And he does. Larry actually solves the problem, not just gives money."

Ellison saw medical records as another area where he could solve a problem. EHRs stand at the center of modern healthcare, used for storing a patient's medical information, ordering follow-up appointments, calling in prescriptions, and more. And yet the systems are treated mostly, as Ellison likes to say, as a "bag of words" — you can't easily extract data from them on a mass scale. All that medical information was going to waste.

Epic may have been a more obvious target for Oracle, since it had a larger share of the market and dominated among large hospitals and research facilities. But Cerner, the go-to EHR for small and midsize hospitals, had a quality that would have appealed to Ellison: It was widely seen as taking a more relaxed approach to data privacy. The company was investing in the technology infrastructure to help hospitals share data with one another — and with third parties.

As it happens, the pandemic strengthened Oracle's case for scooping up Cerner. In the race to defeat the coronavirus, both companies were afforded greater latitude in handling patient records, including those that fall under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. That would enable Oracle to get started on Ellison's EHR of the future right away. Buying Cerner would also help the tech giant compete with Amazon and Microsoft in the massively profitable cloud-computing business and establish a foothold in the healthcare industry, which, at $4.4 trillion, accounted for roughly 18% of the American economy in 2022. It seemed like nothing but upside for Oracle.

Oracle and Cerner announced the deal in December 2021, and the acquisition was finalized on June 8, 2022. Oracle believed it was finally in a position to fulfill Ellison's dream of revolutionizing modern medicine. In reality, it had acquired a high-tech filing system that couldn't even perform the simplest of filing tasks.

The stark reality of what Oracle had just paid for was made clear six weeks after the deal closed, when the tech giant was summoned to Washington, DC, for a grilling before the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

In the months since Oracle had announced its intention to buy Cerner, the mess at the VA had only gotten worse. Outages were increasingly common, and one Cerner executive says the entire system was on the verge of failing: "We were going to go off a cliff and die." The system was considered so dangerous that its rollout to the remaining 166 VA medical centers had been put on hold. Senators listed 36 fixes they expected Cerner — now Oracle — to address before additional sites could make the switch.

Oracle, incredibly, claimed it hadn't been aware of the magnitude of the challenges facing Cerner when it made the biggest acquisition in its history. "I would say there's always things that you discover after the fact," Mike Sicilia, the Oracle executive leading Cerner, told the irate lawmakers . "You know, we certainly had read the press, and we certainly had read things that were publicly disclosed. But there's nothing like owning something to fully understand what's going on."

Still, Sicilia assured lawmakers that Oracle intended to turn things around. The company, he said, had already shifted its top talent, including senior engineers, to work on the VA project. Within nine months, Oracle would move the project onto the cloud, remedying bugs and cutting costs. It would also design a state-of-the-art program for pharmacy, a trouble-ridden area for the project. "Everything here is fixable and addressable" and Cerner would soon be the "gold standard" among EHRs, Sicilia said, adding, "We intend to exceed expectations."

Oracle, incredibly, claimed it hadn't been aware of the magnitude of the challenges facing Cerner when it made the biggest acquisition in its history.

Behind the scenes, Oracle was throwing resources at the situation. To address the raft of blackouts and slowdowns, Oracle installed expensive new hardware and made tweaks that stabilized the system and reduced outages dramatically, the Cerner executive told BI. Ellison was directly involved, holding a monthly meeting with 50 or 60 executive and senior vice presidents in the Oracle Health unit to review incidents and brainstorm solutions, according to a high-level employee who attended the meetings. "Oracle is still learning what they have actually acquired from Cerner," an Oracle executive concedes.

But as Sicilia was trying to assuage concerns on Capitol Hill, a fresh disaster was unfolding at the VA. Only this time, it was happening on Oracle's watch.

Anthony Jones Jr., a 28-year-old Ohio native who had served in the Navy for four years, had a history of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide attempts. In May 2022, he was due to see a VA psychologist, but he failed to show up.

At the time, the Columbus VA had just switched over to Cerner. One feature of the EHR was that if a vet missed an appointment, the no-show would trigger VA staff to follow up. For mental-health cases, VA rules require that vets get three calls, on separate days, followed by a letter. The extra layer of precaution is vital because vets are far more likely to die from suicide or a drug overdose than nonveterans. But because of a design error, that didn't happen. In Jones' case, the record of the no-show "just kind of evaporated," says a Columbus provider familiar with his care. Jones got two calls, but not a third.

Six weeks later, on July 4, Jones was found unresponsive in the shower with the water running. The coroner's report noted that numerous empty cans of inhalants were found scattered around the apartment.

By the time of Jones' death, Oracle was fully in charge of the electronic records system — but it didn't discover and fix the error until August. This led to the VA sending out 70,000 letters to veterans who might have been affected by the error, including 24,000 in central Ohio alone, according to a letter to lawmakers from Donald Remy, the VA's deputy secretary at the time — a copy of which was obtained by BI.

The VA's inspector general later issued a report on the scheduling error that described a case mirroring Jones'. It concluded that "the lack of contact efforts may have contributed to the patient's disengagement from mental health treatment and ultimately the patient's substance use relapse and death."

In another case linked to the same scheduling error, a vet with cirrhosis of the liver failed to appear for an appointment with staff to discuss his drinking, according to a provider familiar with his care. When the vet didn't show up, VA staff — unaware of the scheduling error — left a single voicemail. The vet died in late August of complications from liver damage.

The vet's disease was already so progressed that it's unlikely a single appointment could have made the difference. But because of Oracle's oversight, there's no way to know if better follow-up could have saved the veteran's life.

"Could you imagine in a case like that where we did all the outreach we could have — but that one call," the VA provider says. "And then having to tell that family member he should have got one more call."

A month later, there was another death in Columbus, this time linked to an error in Cerner's pharmacy app. Antibiotics ordered for a vet who had been treated in a community hospital didn't arrive. When the vet's family called the VA pharmacy to see what was holding it up, they were given a tracking number — confirming, it seemed, that the medication had been shipped. But according to Remy's letter to lawmakers, the Cerner EHR had generated a bogus tracking number; the medication had been slated for pickup. The vet never received the medication, and his condition worsened while at home. He died of hypoxia in late September.

Problems with ordering medications were widespread. When Cerner was first deployed in Columbus, delays kept patients with severe schizophrenia waiting for their medication, a Columbus provider says. In the old system, ordering the shots they needed took about two minutes. It required 30 or so steps — and making a single mistake meant starting over. Vulnerable patients, already resistant to treatment and prone to stress, were kept waiting. In one case, staffers had to retrieve a patient who'd bolted for the parking lot bus stop. "By the time we go through all of this difficulty of ordering the medication — which should be a simple thing — the patient can't hardly take it and they go running outside," the provider says.

After Oracle took over, it took months for improvements to be made — and the orders still take 10 minutes to complete.

N early two years after its blockbuster deal with Cerner, Oracle says it has made thousands of improvements. "Our veterans and the people who care for them deserve a world-class EHR system," Seema Verma, the head of Oracle Health and Life Sciences, said in a statement to BI, "and Oracle is delivering it."

The VA also insists it is addressing the problem. "We know from listening to both veterans and VA clinicians that the electronic health record is not meeting expectations — and we're holding Oracle Health and ourselves accountable to get this right," says Dr. Neil Evans, who heads the VA's EHR modernization office. The rollout of the system remains on pause, and the VA will impose higher penalties on Oracle if the company fails to meet performance targets.

But Oracle is still struggling to stabilize the system it bought. The company hasn't fully moved Cerner onto the cloud, as Sicilia promised. While outages have decreased, the VA says they remain "an area of significant attention." According to one Columbus provider, the system went down for 90 minutes in late April, forcing staff to write notes by hand. "Ninety minutes is an eon in clinical time," the provider says. "No scheduling, charting, ordering, reading — nothing."

And while Oracle said it largely resolved the issues with the unknown queue within months of buying Cerner, two VA clinicians described a case from last fall where the disappearance of lab results caused a delay in a patient receiving critical medication. The records, they suspect, went into the unknown queue.

Ellison continues to push for his EHR of the future. But one Oracle executive described the VA contract as a "shackle," absorbing time and attention from Ellison's grander vision for the database he spent so much to purchase. And while Ellison is pushing the AI envelope, there's a chance Oracle could lose a lot of the health data that made Cerner such an attractive bet in the first place. Cerner has continued to lose ground to Epic, its main competitor. Intermountain Health and UPMC, two massive longtime Cerner clients, recently announced they were switching to Epic.

EHR deployments can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and require extensive training, making hospitals reluctant to bet on a company struggling to get the job done. "Folks feel like Cerner is circling the drain," says Sara Vaezy, a chief strategy and digital officer at Providence, a health system in Washington with more than 50 hospitals. "You don't want to pick a dud that you're going to have to replatform in a few years because they don't exist anymore or their product is so bad."

One Oracle executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that many of Cerner's clients were unhappy, in part because cuts to Cerner's workforce had left them with less day-to-day support. "There's not a whole lot we have to tell clients other than please hang in there," he says.

A growing chorus of lawmakers has been calling for the contract to be scrapped. "It's a political and governmentwide failure," says Ed Meagher, a former top official at the VA. "The DOD made a terrible decision, and then that forced a terrible decision on the VA."

It's clear that shifting a vast government-run system like the VA over to a standard EHR designed for the private sector proved far more complex than either Cerner or the VA anticipated. The EHR that Cerner replaced, VistA, was built specifically for the VA, and it was constantly tweaked and upgraded to suit the needs of individual providers and hospitals. The VA brought this mentality to the Cerner project, flooding the company with requests for special customizations — and Oracle has grown so frustrated that it has stopped taking on individual requests that haven't been formally contracted.

Within Oracle's health team, morale has suffered. "Morale is at an all-time low," an Oracle-Cerner manager says. "We have so much important work to do. Everybody's velocity is lower because basically everybody is depressed or upset."

In Spokane, where Cerner was unveiled, it's not clear that things have gotten any better since Oracle took over. During a recent visit to the VA, Charlie Bourg — the vet whose referral was lost in the unknown queue — noticed that the computer was down and that his providers from different departments seemed to have trouble communicating about his case. "I had to watch them struggle," he says.

Bourg knew the issues to be on the lookout for. He and another vet, Charlie Monroe, have become something of a rapid-response team for vets in Spokane and elsewhere. Known to providers and patients as "the Charlies," Bourg and Monroe are among the first to know when a new problem with Cerner is discovered. Lawmakers call them to find out what's going on. Relatives call when they need help advocating for a patient. "People come up to us out of the blue," Monroe says. "They know who we are. 'Can you do something about this? Can you talk to somebody about this?' No. Yeah. Maybe."

In February, the Charlies helped connect the family of a recently deceased vet with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a congresswoman representing Spokane who has called for the termination of the VA's contract with Cerner. Based on initial information from the VA, the vet's daughter was concerned that Cerner might have led to his being given the wrong antibiotic, contributing to his death from sepsis.

Bourg and Monroe are about as different as two vets with long white hair could be. Bourg is soft-spoken and has a flat delivery, even when the topic turns to how much time he has left and how much he worries about his wife and grandkids. (Last December he sued the VA and Oracle for an undisclosed amount.) Monroe, who wears the yellow logo of the Seabees, the Navy's construction regiment, is loud and likes to say he's the better-looking of the two. "We're just two veterans that got involved with this shit because we were screwed over," Monroe says.

When Oracle entered the picture, the Charlies were confused by the company's name, believing it to be a video-game company. They don't know much about Ellison's grand vision for revolutionizing medicine. They just want vets to get the high-quality care they deserve.

Late last year, not long after Ellison's appearance at CloudWorld, the Charlies received a surprise invitation to meet with the VA's leadership in Spokane. Bourg says meetings like that take a toll on his body and mind. Back in 2022, the two had traveled to Washington to meet with lawmakers only to return feeling like it had been a waste of time. "I was totally mentally and physically exhausted," Bourg recalled, "and it still didn't do anything."

Bourg expected to come out of the Spokane meeting feeling the same way. Instead, he delivered a simple message to the assembled leaders. Given Oracle's track record of botched care, he said, there's only one thing for the VA to do: put an end to a contract that has proved so disastrous for so many veterans before someone else gets hurt.

"If they aren't telling me they are shutting it down," Bourg said, "there's nothing to say."

Ashley Stewart is a chief technology correspondent at Business Insider. Blake Dodge is a correspondent at Business Insider covering technology in healthcare.

About Discourse Stories

Through our Discourse journalism, Business Insider seeks to explore and illuminate the day’s most fascinating issues and ideas. Our writers provide thought-provoking perspectives, informed by analysis, reporting, and expertise. Read more Discourse stories here .

Related stories

More from Tech

Most popular

• Main content